Pointing to consumer harms and its own financial losses, Starz pressed the FCC Media Bureau for expedited action on a petition for injunctive relief stemming from its Altice USA complaint (see 1801160058), it said in a docket 18-9 filing posted Friday recapping a meeting with bureau Chief Michelle Carey. Altice on Friday said the Starz claims are meritless. The injunctive relief petition asks that, pending final determination of its complaint against Altice, the FCC order Altice to reinstate Starz carriage on the same terms as before the Jan. 1 blackout, to provide its Cablevision subscribers with 30-day notice of any decision to discontinue Starz channels, and to give subscriber service that meets FCC rules.

Comcast likely will seek summary judgment soon in a complaint charging it with falsely advertising what it charges cable subscribers through its added broadcast and regional sports TV fees, the MVPD said Thursday in a docket 16-5969 filing (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. In the filing, Comcast opposed a motion by the plaintiffs seeking to merge their suit with another one and to file a fifth amended complaint. With the suit, originally a class-action complaint now down to two individual damages claims for $300, the plaintiffs "are now dissatisfied with how they framed this case and want a do-over," Comcast said. Counsel for the plaintiffs didn't comment Friday.

The FCC still hasn't received an assignment or transfer application for AT&T's proposed buy of Time Warner, and assumes it won't since there are reportedly no license transfers that would trigger an agency review, Chairman Ajit Pai wrote Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., in a letter dated Jan. 3 and posted Friday. The letter was in response to a Maloney letter received Oct. 23 raising concerns about diverse programming.

By year's end, selling sports by the season directly to consumers will be common, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Wednesday. Live premium sports viewing online is small, but growing quickly, with virtual MVPDs sure to fuel the trend, he said. The NFL rating declines seen by CBS and NBC might be attributable to more people watching online, he said. It doesn't appear that, at least in the short term, finding a particular game will be any easier online than via traditional TV, since sports league rights aren't only often divided across different services but also among screens, he said.

Roku announced a way for marketers to measure advertising campaign reach and effectiveness on linear and over-the-top content as TV audiences “rapidly shift” viewing to streaming. It's a time of “significant linear viewership decline,” the company said Wednesday. Traditional pay-TV providers -- cable, satellite and phone companies -- lost 1.7 million subscribers in 2016, it said, citing MoffettNathanson, “and the pace is accelerating with more than 2.6 million cutting the cord through September 2017.”

Boxers Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather and HBO undertook "a classic case" of fraudulently inducing consumers to buy the 2015 pay per view of their match by withholding information about Pacquiao's health, class-action appellants said in a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brief (in Pacer) Tuesday appealing U.S District Judge Gary Klausner's August dismissal of their lawsuits. The lower court erred in ignoring plaintiffs' claims the fraudulent omissions concerned business strategy as well as athletic strategy, the appellants said in the docket 17-56366 filing. Showtime and Pacquiao outside counsel Daniel Petrocelli of O'Melveny in a statement Wednesday said fight fans "paid to see Manny Pacquiao box Floyd Mayweather -- and that’s exactly what they got. Plaintiffs have no claim and we look forward to responding to the appeal and explaining why the Federal Judge’s thorough decision is correct.”

Some 12 percent of U.S. broadband households use a livestreaming platform like Facebook Live or Periscope, Parks Associates reported Wednesday based on Q3 data. Nearly a fifth of consumers ages 18-24 engage in livestreaming activity, but livestreaming of TV shows and sports skews older, which Parks said indicates more older viewers “might be using these solutions to access illegal streams of content.” Though some leagues are livestreaming content legitimately, “much of the produced content on these live-streaming platforms remains unsanctioned,” Brett Sappington said. More than a third of households that livestream TV shows or sports said programming was available, but they opted for livestreaming “because they did not want to pay for access,” said the analyst. Another quarter chose livestreaming because programming prices are too high.

The arbitration agreement in Comcast's subscriber agreement with former subscriber Richard Wuest clearly delegates disputes about the scope to an arbitrator, and a lower court was wrong to conclude the agreement didn't encompass Wuest's claims against Comcast, the company said in a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brief (in Pacer) Tuesday. The docket 17-17093 brief comes as Comcast appeals the lower court's denial of its motion to compel individual arbitration after Wuest sued under the California Invasion of Privacy Act over the company's recording his inbound call to a company customer sales representative. The cable operator said its postcard to Wuest to try to convince him to renew his subscription, and Wuest's call to Comcast, clearly arises out of their relationship and thus has to be arbitrated pursuant to the parties' agreement. His counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

TickBox's voluntary changes to operations -- so it no longer ships its streaming video player with easy access to copyright-infringing video streams -- don't moot content companies' entitlement to injunctive relief, those companies said Friday in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles docket 17-CV-7496 reply (in Pacer) in support of their motion for a preliminary injunction. TickBox is opposing the motion (see 1712290026). The programmer plaintiffs -- Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox Films, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Amazon Content Services and Netflix Studios -- said TickBox "has exaggerated its claimed conversion" and customers still can easily launch the same Kodi software add-ons at issue. They said evidence TickBox was advertised for infringing purposes "is clear, overwhelming and undisputed." Outside counsel for TickBox didn't comment Tuesday.

Cablevision's blackout of 16 Starz channels Jan. 1 (see 1801020039) without the required 30-day notice to subscribers, and its subsequent silence to subscriber complaints, warrants the FCC issuing a declaratory ruling restoring carriage, Starz said in a docket 12-1 petition for declaratory ruling posted Friday. Starz said "substantial fines and forfeitures are appropriate" given Cablevision's intentional violation of agency rules. Cablevision parent Altice USA didn't comment Tuesday.